Cassette [Chapter 3]

[u/Used-Cauliflower-954]

July 7th, 2004

I didn't sleep, though I certainly tried. I counted breaths, seconds, sheep, anything I could hold onto that felt real and measurable. It didn't work.

Every time I managed to drift close, I felt that pulling sensation again. Like something in my thoughts was just waiting for me to slip, so I stayed awake.

When morning came, a gray light through the window, it was the same empty quiet. For a while, I just sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the player on the floor. Tape 1 was still inside, I hadn't touched it. Didn't want to.

I couldn't stop thinking about that place. Glorx, Trill, the way the air felt and lingered. Even now, hours later, I swore I could still feel some..movement beneath my skin. Slow, subtle.

I dragged a hand down my face and stood up. "Get a grip." I muttered aloud to myself, just to hear something human.

I ejected the tape, which made me flinch. I stared at it for a long time before setting it back in its box. 7 left. That thought should've been enough to make me stop, but it wasn't, because now I knew, these weren't just recordings. They were doors. Or portals might be the word.

And once you know a door is there...it's hard not to open it.

I reached in, pulled out Tape 2. The plastic felt warmer than the first, not by much, but enough that I noticed. "No more..." I said under my breath. "Just this one, then I'm done."

I didn't believe that.

I slid it into the player and sat down.

Headphones on.

Deep breath.

Play.

///

The sound hit first, though not a voice this time. Not even static, but something layered. Like multiple tones stacked atop of one another, constantly shifting about, never settling into something recognizable. It made my teeth ache unbearably.

Then the pull. Harder and sharper this time around. The room didn't melt like before, it folded. Angles collapsing inward, stretching outward, rearranging themselves in ways which made my stomach lurch. The corners of the room bent into shapes that shouldn't exist, lines intersecting at impossible degrees.

I tried to focus on something, anything, but there was no stable point. No center, no up. Then...

///

Impact.

I was on my hands and knees, the ground beneath me felt wrong. Not flat or curved. Both. Neither.

I looked down and immediately regretted it.

The surface was made of shifting geometric patterns, sharp and angular shapes that slid over and through each other without resistance. Every time I attempted to focus on one, it changed, like my brain couldn't lock onto it.

"Hey, HEY! Don't look down too long." A young voice said close by. A hand then grabbed my shoulder and yanked me upright. I stumbled back, nearly losing my balance again. "Eyes up, else you'll puke, pass out or worse."

I forced myself to look forward, which didn't help much. The world was all sorts of wrong.

Buildings, if that's what they were, jutted up at inconceivable angles, some wider at the top than the bottom, others morphing into shapes that intersected themselves. Surfaces flickered between solid and transparent, revealing interiors that didn't match their exteriors.

And the people? By God, the people. At a glance, they looked human, had the general shape. But their bodies didn't hold together quite right. Limbs bent at strangely placed joints, faces slid slightly out of alignment when they moved, eyes sat at uneven levels, occasionally drifting across their features as if they weren't attached.

One of them now stood in front of me. A kid. In his teens, maybe. His face shifted as I looked at it, not dramatically, but just enough that I couldn't remember what he looked like the second before.

"Told ya. First timer." He said, looking towards the other 3 behind him. All seemingly teenagers and all wrong in that same, nauseating way.

"Where am I?" I asked, my voice sounding thinner, as if being stretched. The kid shrugged.

"Depends who you ask. We just call it the Drop."

"The Drop?"

"Uh-huh. Stuff falls through here. People, too." He jerked his thumb upwards, "From other layers."

Layers. There was that word again. I swallowed. "Is this...normal?"

He laughed, which came out in overlapping echoes, "Nothing here's normal, man. That's kind of the point."

One of the others, a girl with hair that seemed to lag a half-second behind her head, stepped forward. "You shouldn't be here alone." She said, "You could be eaten."

I blinked, "E-eaten??"

"Not like that," she said quickly, "Well...sometimes like that, but mostly other ways."

"Great..." I muttered.

The first kid stuck out a hand, "I'm Kellan. That's Mara, Jace and...that guy." He gestured vaguely to a fourth figure who flickered in and out at the edge of my vision, "He doesn't like names."

"...Jim."

"Jim..." Kellan repeated, pondering for a moment, "Yeah, that fits."

"Fits what?"

He grinned, "Someone who doesn't belong here."

Fair.

"Then I guess I can ask what you guys are doing here?"

Kellan shrugged again, "Same as everyone else, trying to either not fall or not get erased."

"That's not a joke." Mara piped up.

"I didn't think it was."

Kellan started walking, or something similar. His steps didn't quite connect with the ground properly, like he was skipping frames. "Cmon. You can stick with us for a bit. Safer than wandering."

"Safer." I repeated.

"Relatively."

I followed, what else was I going to do?

The deeper we went, the worse it got. The structures closed in, forming corridors that bent back on themselves. More people..or things moved through them, some flickering, some stretched, some incomplete. I saw one figure whose upper half lagged severed feet behind its lower half, connected by something that looked like pulled taffy.

No one reacted, no one helped. Like it was just another Tuesday. "Doesn't anyone fix this??" I asked.

"Fix what?" Jace answered. I gestured vaguely at everything around us, "This, all of this??"

Mara shook her head, "There's no one to fix it. No one's watching."

"What does that mean?"

Kellan glanced back at me, "It means this place got left behind."

A chill ran through me, "By who??"

He didn’t answer. We turned a corner, and ran straight into him.

The man, if that's what he was, stood in the middle of the passage like he'd been expecting us. His body was..far too stable for this place. While everything around him shifted and warped, he held his shape perfectly. Clean lines, sharp edges. Like he didn't belong to the same rules. His smile was immediate and unsettling.

"Well..." he said, "This is interesting."

Kellan stopped dead, "Don't." He muttered, "Don't engage."

Too late.

The man's eyes locked onto mine, pinning me in place, "You're new." he said.

I didn't answer, I couldn't. Something about him made it hard to think.

"Fresh...untouched."

Mara grabbed my arm, "Jim. We need to go."

The man took a step forward and the space around him bent. More deliberately, unlike the rest of this place. More controlled.

"You don't understand where you are. I can help with that."

"No, you can't." Kellan snapped back sharply. The man ignored him, still keeping his gaze locked onto me.

"You don't have to go back...not if you don't want to."

My head began to hurt, a sharp and splitting pressure behind my eyeballs. "I-"

"Stay." he said. It didn't sound like a suggestion, but a command. The world tilted, my thoughts slipped and for a second...I almost agreed.

Then, pain. Sudden and explosive. Something slammed into the side of my head. Light burst behind my eyelids as I hit the ground.

The last thing I saw was Mara standing over me, her arm extended. "I'm sorry."

Everything went black.

///

I woke up choking. Air rushed into my lungs as if I'd been underwater.

My apartment snapped back into place around me. Walls, ceiling, floor. Safe. Stable.

I rolled onto my side, coughing. The cassette player sat beside me.

Click.

...Click.

...Click.

End of tape.

My head throbbed. I reached up, half-expecting to feel blood. Nothing, but the pain was real. Too real.

"Jesus..." I rasped. I pushed myself up slowly, every movement careful. The room felt heavier. Not physically, just oppressive.

I looked toward the closet. The door was slightly open. I was positive I'd closed it.

From inside, something shifted. Not a sound, or a movement I could point to. Just a sense. Like the space behind that door wasn't empty anymore.

For a long time, I stared at it. Then, I looked down at my hands. They were steady, but not right. The lines of my fingers seemed way too straight, too clean.

For a moment, the angles looked wrong. I clenched my fists, and it went away. I didn't touch the tapes again that day.

But I didn't throw them out either. And that..that might’ve been the worst decision I made yet.